Read a full match report of the Premier League contest between Southampton and
Newcastle at St Mary's on Saturday, March 29, 2014

Southampton’s England contenders are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore and swept aside an abject Newcastle United as Alan Pardew returned to the stadium and Andre Marriner returned to the centre circle.

The West Midlands official had little to do other than witness the Saints’s repeated assaults on the Magpies’s beleaguered defence and made only one booking as he managed to navigate smooth waters on the South coast.

Jay Rodriguez now has 17 goals for the season, though in truth he, Adam Lallana and Rickie Lambert ought to have had more during an afternoon of total home dominance. If they are taken to Brazil, they will find the going far more difficult than it was here. Ray Lewington joined Pardew in watching from the stands.

Speaking after his team’s biggest winning margin of the season, Mauricio Pochettino described the performance as “amazing and outstanding”. “We were superior throughout the 90 minutes. Collectively and individually the team are developing,” he added.

The only surprise was that it took Rodriguez so long to break the deadlock. He had already found the side-netting with a gilt-edged opportunity and a later header whilst Lallana somehow failed to convert Lambert’s knockdown and Lambert himself was foiled by Rob Elliot, who was blameless as he proved an able deputy for Tim Krul.

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“I had two clear feelings in the first half,” said Pochettino. “I was very happy overall but at the same time I was very angry because we were wasteful. The goal came in the 11th chance that we created.” Marriner had almost nothing to do, though if this were a boxing match, he would have had to stop it on safety grounds, so relentless was Southampton’s assault of Newcastle’s ramshackle defence.

The Magpies were perhaps too busy fighting each other. Cheick Tioté and Mike Williamson had to be separated by team-mates after yet another Southampton infiltration.

Pardew described his team’s efforts as “lacklustre” and as one that “we need to make sure never happens again”. There were several ‘look away now’ moments for Newcastle's rearguard. Lambert had no trouble breaching a disjointed offside trap to square to Rodriguez for a simple finish.

“I’m not really going to talk about the individual players in the team today,” Pardew said. “Collectively we have to accept responsibility. The difference in energy levels between the two teams was marked I thought.” Inexplicably, the Magpies again tried to catch Lambert offside after the break. It didn’t work and instead the Liverpudlian found himself with time and space to smash the ball high into the net shortly after half-time.

Lallana again produced a performance which oozed elan and he ended one of his many soft-shoed dribbles with an unstoppable left-foot drive into the right corner of Elliot’s net. His place in Roy Hodgson’s squad was probably assured even before that wonderful goal.

By the time Rodriguez had latched onto Gastón Ramírez’s perfectly-weighted pass and fired through the legs of Elliot, many of the visiting supporters had left.

Those that stayed booed their team off whilst chants of “4-0 to England” rang out from the Saints. “What can we say,” offered Pardew as an apology. “They’ve left at 5.30 and come and watched a performance that isn’t us.”